


Quiet

by silvered_glass



Series: Quiet [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Post War, minor character death 'off screen', nothing graphic but alluded to mentions of wartime rape and violence, some very first time-ish sexual encounters, stunted emotions and gentle recovery from such events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 14:52:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11693991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvered_glass/pseuds/silvered_glass
Summary: −∞−“No passwords, always thought that was odd.” Potter shrugs.“There is a password you know.” Draco says, mouth pinched, “but the way Hogwarts is constantly sending you fruit baskets and offerings, I get the feeling you don’t need them.”“Oh,” says Harry looking at the small bowl of fruit on Goyle’s dusty bedside table and putting the apple back on top, “is that not normally there?”−∞−Draco is alone in the Slytherin dorms until Harry starts coming to visit.





	Quiet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charlotte_Bird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlotte_Bird/gifts).



> This was inspired by [this picture that the wonderful Charlotte-Bird](http://charlotte-bird.tumblr.com/post/144306923647/finished-maybe-not-sure-hes-still-looking-a) created. It's evocative and is a mood unto itself. I hope I captured a bit of that mood in this work.
> 
> I apologise for the amount of faded away sentences ... These boys are at the beginning of something, but they have no idea how to finish saying anything they start to say.

−∞−

 

Eighth year back at Hogwarts is a quiet dream. There had been no sorting this first year back. The concept of houses and divisions too much for people to contend with. 

Professor McGonagall had made a speech about not wanting there to be 'further walls between students when they were still rebuilding the walls of the castle.' It had been trite but true Draco supposes, but at the same time, McGonagall had been the person who ordered every Slytherin to leave after Pansy’s outburst before the Battle so if anyone had a somewhat blinkered view on house division… 

But Draco said this to no one.   

There was no one to say it to. 

There had been an intake of first years. But none of them came to sleep in the Slytherin dormitory. And unsurprisingly, there had been few Slytherins from the other years who returned at all. Those who did seemed to be sleeping in either of the towers. Although he is sure he spotted at least one girl he thinks maybe two years ago had been a third year Slytherin coming out of the corridor that leads to the kitchen and the Hufflepuff dorms. 

Slughorn is here. But his rooms are up on the sixth floor. So essentially Draco is living by himself.  Dorms, bathrooms, and common room, are all his and his alone. 

It’s nice. Compared to his other most recent living arrangements, which have been an ancient ancestral pile full of deranged violent cult members just as likely to attack you, the sole-and-rightful-heir to the property they were abusing the hospitality of, as they were to attack an innocent on the orders of their fucked-up leader; Followed by a holding cell at the ministry, and then two nights at of all places, the Leaky Cauldron.   

His Mother was still there, in limbo at The Leaky awaiting her hearing. His father, in Azkaban. The ancestral pile, being picked apart by Aurors and Magi-forensics and Unspeakables. 

Draco had no choice but to return to Hogwarts. And he was glad of it.  For one thing, he seemed to be pretty shit at making decisions for himself. But also, he had utterly no idea what to do with himself. 

When the Wizengamot had handed down his sentence it had been a relief, however he’d hardly recognised the words as they were read out. He’d been staring at Potter’s profile.   

Potter didn’t sit in on all the trials. Draco knew this, he’d read it in the Prophet. So he’d been surprised that even after Potter completed testifying, in Draco’s favour, that he had come back to observe the next two days as well. 

As the words ‘probation’ and ‘mandatory education completion’ and ‘community service’ washed over him, Draco barely able to understand their meaning at the time, he'd not looked away from Potter. His jawline defined and covered in a light stubble in a way it never was at school, juxtaposed with the glint of light reflecting off his unchanging spectacle frames. His shoulders perhaps fuller than in the years past, or maybe just unburdened Draco had thought at the time.

The wizard reading the ruling had stopped speaking and it was only when Potter had turned to look at him, eyes meeting but his expression unchanging, that Draco realised he should move. Should bow to the Wizengamot. Should move on to where ever he was being taken to next. 

Which has turned out to be a strange solitary sanctuary in a place he thought was his past. 

 

Draco has charms work he should be doing. But he’s not. 

Instead he has taken an overly long shower in his inexpertly modified double shower. At the end of the first week he’d _’_ _Reductoed_ _’_ an old wooden cubical wall and with a little spell-work to bend the pipes he’d managed to aim two shower heads so the spray from each met in the middle. He likes to wash. There is something about being clean and fresh with skin scrubbed pink that is very calming these days. 

And now he’s standing with a towel wrapped around his waist staring at his clothes spread over Blaise’s old bed. Blaise was in Cannes last month, he wonders where he would be now, maybe a Greek island. The other beds in the dorm remain untouched. And Draco doesn’t think too much about where their previous occupants are. There is certainly no need to wonder, all of their whereabouts being hard, unchangeable things. 

Draco lets his towel fall to the floor and eschewing pants pulls on a pair of fine woven trousers. He picks up his Standard Book of Spells: Grade 7, his wand and some parchment and wanders out of the room, down the hallway to the empty common room. The sconces flare a little brighter as he moves into the room. He pauses by one of the tables, but something catches his eye and he finds himself walking towards the round oversized porthole window. 

All the other windows in the common room are large arch shaped ones, but this window is a perfect round circle. It’s set far into the rock of the castle, creating a window seat deep enough to fit two or three people side-by-side easily. Draco remembers in first year watching Gemma Farley laughing with some friends, a group of girls squashed into the space together. Loud and bright. 

He doesn’t think about the Farley family. 

Instead, Draco lets himself, as he often does, be distracted by a flick of a Merperson’s tail or the glimpse of a tentacle. 

He sits and shuffles up against the stone of the window seat, it’s cold against his bare back. He stretches his spine a little, rests his feet up against the curved wall opposite, considers his charms textbook but leaves it sitting next to him and instead looks at the gently moving water, dappled golden light from the mid-afternoon Saturday sun filtering through. Draco picks his wand up and aims a warming charm at the smooth stones behind him.

 

“You don’t have a password?” Potter is yelling from somewhere. It’s a bit annoying. Also, his neck hurts. He opens his eyes a fraction, the water beside him still a cool moss green. He closes them again. 

“Malfoy?” Potter yells again. “Hello! You don’t have a password?” 

It’s a bit odd. Draco does spend a fair bit of time since school started looking at Potter. His profile is still somehow something that draws his eye. And there is something comforting in the ‘doing of’ looking at Potter. But he hasn’t spoken to him in months. But still, he knows that voice.

And it’s real, not a strange dream. 

Draco opens his eyes a little again. Potter is standing in the middle of the common room, twisting his body a little to peer up the hallway that leads to the dorms. Seems reluctant to go any further. Draco wonders why he’s come this far at all. He also wonders if he stays very still will Potter not see him at all. He holds his breath. 

“Hello-o! Malfoy!” Potter tugs at his hair a little and starts to turn towards where Malfoy is sitting, calling out again as he does, “you don’t have a pass... Ahh, don’t have a shirt on?” And yes. Potter has seen him. 

Draco breathes a careful breath in and watches as Potter walks towards him. He’s wearing some sort of overly large sweater in quite a nice deep green and jeans. Draco has a pair of jeans himself now. He’s never worn them. 

“How do you know where the Slytherin Dormitory is?” He asks, careful to keep his voice calm and level, as if he’s not even interested in the answer to the question. As if he’s not a bubble of nerves and a little afraid just at the sight of Potter, of anyone, paying him attention.

“I thought there’d be more. I mean I am glad there isn’t. Fuck Malfoy, you have to know. I mean, I’m so glad. I never meant. Shit.” Potter has stopped less than a metre away and seems to struggle to stop himself from staring at Draco's chest.  

“The Dittany healed them well.” 

“Yeah.” Potter says, he sounds a little lost. “Ah, I came in here once before, years ago. Ron and me, we Polyjuiced into Crabbe and Goyle.” 

At this Draco sits up a little and cocks his head, “When?” 

“Second year. Thought you were up to something.” 

“Huh. Should have saved it for sixth, although they were mostly Polyjuiced themselves.” Draco stops. Those hard, unchangeable things he does not think about are all of a sudden all there. He may be sick. 

It must be all over his face because Potter doesn’t speak. He pulls his wand out of his pocket, summons an empty candle holder from a side table nearby, transfigures it into a glass and fills it with a quick _Aguamenti._   

Then he sits down gingerly on the very edge of the stone window seat and passes the glass to Draco. 

When Draco drinks, the water is cool and somehow sweet. 

 

Draco watches a large eel slowly swim by. Potter coughs. When he finally turns to look at him, his profile, that sharply cut jaw. This close to Potter he can see the stubble on his cheek is getting long enough that it is starting to curl. Potter has his eyes shut, his lashes are quite thick, a dark smudge against his skin. He looks tired, he's still just on the edge of the window sill, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. He has nice forearms does Potter, starting to build a little muscle when they used to be scrawny. Not being hunted by a megalomaniac intent on your destruction is slowly starting to look better on Potter. Draco looks back at his face. 

"I was in London today," Potter says softly, "your mother..." 

"Oh." Draco says, his voice clipped, his stomach dropping. He's not in touch with her enough. Perfunctory owls every second day that let each know that they still exist, basic updates on day to day events. Neither of them able to go any further then that at the moment.  He knew that the hearings had ended some weeks before, but he didn't realise the judgement would be today.

"She's fine, fine." Potter reassures, "I spoke for her. She's on a probation as well. Similar to you just no requirement to attend school." He turns then, an attempt at a gentle half smile. 

"I'm not sure what to say Potter. You needn't have spoken for either of us, we never would have..." Draco searches for a word. He hates being indebted to Potter. But he is. Fuck though, aren't they all. The whole damn world. 

Potter interrupts but his voice is still soft, "Expected it? No. Of course, I know that Draco, I wanted to go. I didn't do it just because of what she did for me, or what you did for me." 

Draco doesn't understand, "What she did for you? I don't know what you mean. And we talked about this when you gave the wand back," Draco waves towards his wand sitting on his charms textbook beside him, "anything you think I did when they brought you to my home, well, you repaid in the fire.”

Potter turns then, shifts so he's sitting facing towards Draco. His sweater twists around him tight against his torso. Draco flicks his eyes away.

"Malfoy, she told him I was dead. He sent her to check on me and she told him I was dead. I mean I had been dead, but when she did that I wasn't. I was alive." 

Draco feels something shift a little. Things he thought he was certain of move a fraction. Rearrange. 

"My mother lied to the Dark Lord?" He focuses on what seems to be more immediately relateable too. Although he can't imagine. "How could she have?" 

Potter tilts his head slightly in a question. 

Draco shakes his head, “No, I don’t mean out of loyalty, I don’t know if she ever  _believed_  in him. I think she agreed in the beginning. It’s what she knew after all, all she knew, how she was raised...” 

Potter cuts in again, his eyebrows raised, “Sounds like someone else I know.” 

Draco makes an uncertain dismissive noise, “She never took a mark.  _I_ took a mark. But no, I don’t think she believed.” He lifts his left arm and rubs at the skin on his forearm. "How did she get away with it? He was in and out of all of our minds always.” 

Potter gives a little laugh muttering mainly to himself, “Relatable.” 

“We all would have attempted to practise Occlumency but I mean, he was everywhere. How did she manage to lie? She would have been petrified.” Draco murmurs, more to himself than to Potter, he’s still scrambling to comprehend. 

Potter does an odd thing then, he leans forward a little more, body still twisted so he can face Draco, resting his weight on his left hand and he puts his right on Draco’s knee. Even through the cotton it’s warm and solid and Draco finally looks at him properly. 

Potter's mouth twitches and he says hesitantly, “I think if he had looked in her mind then he would have only felt pain. Because, all she was thinking about was you and I know he couldn’t handle feeling..." He takes a deep breath; seems very uncomfortable but also earnest, "well I know he couldn't handle feeling love and well. Yeah. I don’t really understand it all even now but I think if he tried he would have felt that and…” Potter fades away, he looks embarrassed. 

Draco feels his eyes stinging a little. I can't really think about it. The way his mother loves him. The way he ignored her almost, in favour of his father.

“So where will she stay?” He asks, and Potter takes his hand away, moves backwards.

“She’ll stay at the Leaky for now. We ah, we really don’t seem to have too many wizarding hotels?”  

“Are you asking me?” 

“Well, it seems odd.” 

"We holidayed in our chalet in Verbier, or at the Nott's place outside Èze so I’m not one to ask."  

“Oh. Of course, your chalet,” Potter says this with an inclination of his voice and a wiggle of his head and gives a funny bark of a laugh. He's ribbing him. Potter is ribbing him in a friendly manner. Draco scratches the back of his hand for something to do. Best not to be too happy about something so simple.

“There are ones I know, agreements with The Grosvenor or some fancy place." Potter continues a little more thoughtfully.

"Yes, I think Mother would probably prefer that."  

"While your house is under investigation her accommodation is still being paid for by the Ministry, don't think they push the boat out too much." 

"Not my house," Draco mutters. 

Potter makes a noise, as if he doesn't understand. Draco doesn't either really. He just knows he's more at home here, alone in the Slytherin common room. 

Something swims near the window, a large tail flicks and Potter jumps, makes a funny startled noise and then laughs a little sheepishly. He says after a little while, “It’s quiet down here apart from them.”

Draco nods, “Mmm.” He acknowledges.

“Just you really, is it?”

“Just me.” Draco sighs.

“It’s nice.” Potter says. He’s looking round the space. The empty couches. The spotless side tables. The bookshelves without a volume missing. “Peaceful.”

He leaves soon after this. Says something about needing to ‘get out for a fly, you know how it is.’

Draco doesn’t really.

He owls his mother.

 

−∞−

 

Two days later Draco gets back quite late from an overtime Arithmancy class and Potter is asleep on a couch. His mouth open, glasses askew on his face and _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Seven_ laying open on his chest.

Draco stops and looks at him for a moment. He doesn’t really know what to do. Then Potter makes a sort of a snuffle.

Draco leaves him and goes up to his dormitory. He dumps his bags, drops his robe in the washing basket, and goes into the bathroom to have a shower. He doesn’t admit it to himself, but where he normally lingers and indulges, tonight he rushes. Perfunctory wash of his hair, a quick drying charm when he’s out. The mirror barely having time to steam up even.

He stands staring at his clothes laid out on Blaise’s bed for a long moment. Finally picking up an older knitted sweater. His hand hesitates above those jeans he bought himself, but he firms his mouth. It is an evening like always. He would wear pyjamas now usually, so he will now. Potter will probably have left when he gets back to the common room anyhow. Whatever he was doing there anyway.

He does put on pants under the pyjamas. Then collecting his copy of _Needle Pines and Numbers_ and his half-finished Arithmancy paper and goes back down to the common room.

The sconces flare as he enters and there is a tray of sandwiches and a jug of something on the table nearest the couches. Draco crosses to this and looks over at the couch. Potter is still there, still asleep, still snuffling.

It’s about twenty minutes or so before Potter wakes up. He does so slowly. Draco is sitting at the table on the chair that faces towards the couch he’s lying on so he sees him as he moves his arm. Slips a hand under his glasses and rubs his eyes, then sits up suddenly. This must dislodge the heavy text book because there is a groan and Potter swears.

Draco watches a little cautiously, very curiously.

“Fuck! Fucking book.” Potter rubs at his crotch, makes eye contact with Draco and swears again, sounding more surprised than anything, “Shit! Malfoy!” He stands up then, shakes his leg a little and says with a funny embarrassed smile, “Hit myself with that book when I sat up.”

Draco does not think about if that means Potter was semi-hard or something while he slept. Draco does not look at that region of Potter’s body as he walks towards him and sits at the table. Draco pointedly keeps his eyes fixed above chest height. Better to look at the jaw he thinks.

Potter reaches unabashed for the tray of food, there is a charm hovering over it and he reaches for Draco’s wand, sitting on the table between them and casts a _‘Finite Incartium’_ casually.

Draco’s tongue feels a little large in his mouth.

“Have you eaten?” Potter asks while splashing pumpkin juice out of the jug into a goblet, “They’ve sent enough for you so maybe you haven’t?”

Draco is still looking at his wand, rolling very slightly from where Potter let it drop back onto the table. “No, no I was late from lessons, I missed dinner.”

“You shouldn’t have waited.” Potter is putting a sandwich on a smaller plate and sliding it towards him.

Draco looks up at him, “They never bring me food Potter, it was obviously for you.”

Potter looks at the tray again and then back up. Draco notices there is a small bit of something by his left eye. Something dried onto his skin.

“There is much more than usual, got to be for you Malfoy. Plus, I hate whatever this is.” He’s sniffing his sandwich, nose wrinkled.

It’s tuna with capers. Draco’s favourite.

They swap plates and eat silently. Draco uncertain and a little unnerved. Potter seemingly oblivious to the oddness of the situation. Eventually Potter says, “Homework?” through his mouthful of food and juts his chin towards Draco’s parchment and open book.

“Yes.” Draco.

“More peaceful than the library.” Potter observes, then nods towards Draco’s half-eaten sandwich, “You should finish that.”

Then he stands up, leaving his chair pushed out and goes over and picks up his charms book. Draco watches as Potter walks towards the door, he turns when he’s almost there, “Thanks Malfoy, and seriously eat that sandwich.” Then he’s gone.

Draco leans across the table and puts Potter’s plate and goblet back on the tray and turns his attention back to writing about the _Pinus taeda_  and the numbers twenty-eight and fifty.

By the time he finishes the fire is low in the grate, his back aches and his quill is a little scratchy on the parchment, but he has finished his sandwich.

 

Potter just turns up from then on. He’s often there when Draco gets back from working on his potions project, so that’s late on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He seems to always come on the evenings after he has Charms, Draco watching Potter’s brow get more furrowed and ink splatters getting messier across his parchment until he gives in and silently slides it across the table to read. And correct.

Sometimes Draco will come rushing in during the day to collect a forgotten book and find Potter napping on the same couch as that first time.

There is always food on the nights there is Potter. The fire seems to keep itself burning a little longer.

One evening Potter comes in in a rush. He’s wearing a travelling cloak and he doesn’t stop until he’s half way across the room. When he finds Draco, sitting in a wing-backed chair near the fire, it takes a few more steps before he brings himself to a halt.

Draco stays still, watching. Potter looks a little wild. Reminds Draco of Potter in the past, angry and spitting something back at him. There is a reason they don’t really talk Draco thinks.

“Malfoy.” Potter breathes it out.

“Yes.” His voice is very hesitant even to his own ears. He doesn’t want this. Whatever it is.

Potter steps another few steps closer, moves around the couch without looking, he’s familiar with the space, knows the room.

“Been in London.” Potter says and his face sort of slips for a moment, but just as quickly he’s angry again. “Greyback.”

“Ah,” Draco says.

“There was a lot of evidence from your house.”

“Not my house.” Draco murmurs. Potter walks closer then, Draco can see his eyes now, they are bloodshot.

“I spent so long moving, while we were hunting..." Potter sighs, a sort of shaky thing, "there is just so much I don’t know about what happened to everyone.”

Draco stays silent. Focuses on Potter’s face. Doesn’t think.

“I didn’t know Malfoy. I thought it was just where we were, with Luna and Dean and Gryphook and Mr Ollivander."

Draco blinks, “No there were more. I’d hear them. It’s...” He looks away from Potter, looks at the fire. “It’s quiet at night in the country.”

Suddenly Potter’s on his damn knees. He’s in front of Draco, hands on Draco’s own knees, blinking up at him, but his eyes are too wet and Draco liked it better when Potter was just a profile from far away. A jaw line and a silent place of focus.

“Draco, did they touch you?”

Draco makes an odd noise.

Potter’s hands clench on his knees again, “Malfoy?”

“No. No Greyback didn’t touch me. Dolohov once, after you all..." Draco stops. He can't lay that at Potter's feet as well. "But I poked him in the eye after a bit.”

“Dolohov?” Potter is moving his head, trying to catch Draco’s eyes.

“Well, yes. So that’s what it was.”

“Shit.” Potter turns then, slumps so he’s sitting facing towards the fire. “They listed the names of a lot of victims. Ages. I think...”

Draco reaches out, hand hesitating above the thick wool of Potter’s cloak.

“Maybe we waited too long, I think about the deaths I caused here at Hogwarts, never stop thinking. But fuck, I hadn’t thought, maybe I just tried not to think about how many others just while we were planning. Searching.” He sobs then, sudden and with a retching inwards breath, and Draco feels almost as if his limbs have pins and needles.

Potter cries for a bit. And it takes a moment, feels a long time, but Draco finally pushes down on his sick stomach and horrified painful heart to sit up straighter in his chair, move forward and put his hand on the back of Potter’s head.

“It’s not true Potter. You didn’t wait too long. There was nothing you could do other than what you did.” And Draco digs his fingers into Potter’s scalp a little. Pulls his fingers though his hair and then repeats the motion. And then does it again.

Potter quiets after a little. Rubs at his eyes and twists. Draco drops his hand down as if he was burnt. It swings a little by his shin while Potter gives a feeble smile.

“Got anything to drink?”

 

Draco does. Draco has a bottle of butterscotch schnapps, three-quarters of a bottle of Ogden’s and some kirsch.

Potter looks at the bare-ish shelf that Draco has just revealed to him by tapping a copy of _Hogwarts; A History_ on a shelf next to the fireplace.

“Communal Slytherin speakeasy is it?”

“You can only open it after your seventeenth.” Draco answers as he reaches for the schnapps.

He picks up a pillow from the sofa and the throw rug that was on the back of the chair he'd been sitting on and walks over to his window. Potter follows, he’s already had a swig from the bottle of Ogden’s if the splutter Draco hears behind him is any indication.

Draco drops the pillow down and settles himself into his spot, looks back at Potter who is unbuttoning his traveling cloak finally and dropping it on the sofa. He has a formal dark robe under this and he drops that carelessly as well. Picks up the bottle from the side table and unbuttons his waistcoat as he walks over to join Draco. Draco gives up keeping his eyes above chest level.

“I like your tie.” Draco he says for want of something too.

“Ginny. She said it went with my eyes.”

Draco sips his bottle. It’s very sweet.

“She broke up with me. Or didn’t get back together with me, one of the two.” Potter has sat down on the other side of the window, legs spread out flat, he’s pulling at the tie and when it’s free he throws it at Draco. It floats down, lands on Draco’s pyjama clad thigh.

“Nice pyjamas.” Potter comments and tips his head back to take a drink. He hits it on the stone, swears and spills a bit of Firewhisky. Draco casts a cushioning charm and Potter wipes his chin off and they sit for a time.

Potter tells him about how he’s never passed his apparition test but he learnt how to do it when he was hiding. Draco tells him how he learnt to ride a broom, taught by a house elf but with his father appearing at the end of every lesson to offer criticism. Potter tells him how he never learnt to ride a bicycle. Potter also tells him what a bicycle is properly. Draco sings the first verse of _A Cauldron full of Hot, Strong Love._ Potter sings something about a submarine. Potter also explains exactly what a submarine is.

There are a lot of things that Draco is aware of, but doesn’t know.

After a while Potter turns, lays down so his legs hang over the edge of the window seat and his head is up by the glass of the window. To allow him to do this Draco turns his body when Potter starts moving and finds himself doing the same thing, except Draco has his pillow still, so he puts that down.

“I never knew you died.” Draco says, “When you told me what Mother did, I never knew.”

Potter breathes in for a long time. His head is angled up and Draco can see his chest rise. Deliberately watches it rise.

“I did.”

“I wanted to sometimes,” Draco says very softly, “but also, I was afraid.”

“Did you really want to?” Potter doesn’t move, stays staring into the blackness.

“No, maybe not. I poked Dolohov in the eye.”

“He didn’t want to _kill_ you though did he?” And Draco knew he did, but yes, Potter must have heard it all at the trials.

“No.” Draco agrees. “No, he didn’t.”

Potter shuffles then moves a little closer. Their shoulders touching and he lifts his head up. Draco gives him space on the pillow.

“Have you ever seen a movie?” Potter asks. And then starts telling some strange story about a muggle type of Egyptian curse breaker searching for some type of container that holds some rocks with words on them, something about the curse breaker having a whip and a hat and hating snakes.

The lake is dark above them and Potter is warm beside him. When he wakes up a little later they are both still on their backs, their arms laying between them and the back of Draco's fingers seem to burn a little where they sit against the back of Potter's right hand.

 

−∞−

 

There is a routine for a while. Potter visiting. They swap homework. Potter reads the Quidditch match reports out loud. Draco reads Blaise’s owls. Potter lists countries he’d like to visit. Draco owls his family's old Port-Key travel agency who send coloured brochures for wizarding holidays. They probably think he's looking for somewhere to run off to. Draco almost expects an Auror to call to do a probation review.

Potter reads the Icelandic one and the one for Thailand over and over. Draco wonders about the two extremes. Potter always encourages Draco to eat. Draco always leaves him to sleep when he turns up unexpectedly.

This starts to happen at odd times though.

Draco walks through the common room one morning and if he hadn’t paused at the table to put his Transfiguration text book in his bag he wouldn’t have seen Potter, lain out on his couch.

He leaves him there, goes to breakfast and looks at the table where the Gryffindors still all sit, wonders if the elves will arrange breakfast for Potter like they do dinner.

He wraps up two boiled eggs, some seeded bread and an apple in a cloth napkin and walks fast back down to the dorms, but the room is empty.

 

Potter is absent for a few days. Draco doesn’t see him in the one class they share now, Transfiguration, and he’s not at any meals in the Great Hall. No one else seems to think anything of his absences so Draco doesn’t say anything to anyone. He’s not really got anyone to say anything too.

On the fourth day he wakes up and Potter is standing next to his bed. He’s holding two broomsticks in his hands and he looks a little wild-eyed again.

“Come fly with me Malfoy?” Potter asks. And Draco sits up in bed making sure his pyjama shirt is buttoned up and can’t seem to control his tongue, can’t seem to get it to say the word ‘no.’

He hasn’t flown since then. Since the back of Potter’s broom.

He gets dressed in a hurry. His stomach a mess of nerves and the whole time wondering why he couldn’t say no to Potter and far too quickly they are leaving the common room.

Someone calls to Potter as they walk along beside the marble stairs, sees that Draco is beside him and then says no more but openly gapes at them. Potter has slowed a little, seems to be walking just beside Draco, but also, almost behind. He’s tucked himself into Draco’s shadow.

Draco shoots a cold look at the few others who are in the entrance hall that early on a Saturday and soon they are through the large main doors and Potter is walking in front again, leading the way down the path towards Hogsmeade. After they cross the crest of the hill, a little hidden from sight from the castle he stops.

“Should we kick off here?”

Draco might be sick.

“I think we should,” Potter answers himself. He holds the other broom out to Draco.

It’s a Firebolt like Harry’s but a newer one, the latest range.

“No, I’ll ride that one if you like,” Draco says with a nod towards the one still in Potter’s left hand.

“I bought you this one though? It’s the best they had.”

“You what?”

“Come on Malfoy," Potter says, no-nonsense, "been thinking about this all week.” And he’s swinging the broom under him and kicking off smoothly.

Draco is so confused about the broom buying that he forgets to be nervous until he’s already up in the air and by that time Potter is turning a lazy circle around him, “Let’s fly to the Shrieking Shack just to get a feel for the brooms and then we’ll race?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, or say where they will race too, but instead shoots forward, body low over his broom and Draco can only copy him and let his instincts take over.

The broom is nothing like his Nimbus. It turns like mercury rolling around a vial, seems to know how Draco is going to move his body before he does, and the speed of the thing; Draco doesn’t know if it is that it’s been so long since he flew, but Merlin the ground just melts away beneath him. Draco is ahead of Potter when they reach the shack. He looks behind at Potter who smiles and yells out, “Go!”

And so, Draco does.

It's fucking brilliant. They fly over Hogsmeade, Potter in front now, dipping low over the roofs and circling a spire attached to a larger home on the outskirts. Then Potter heads up towards the mountains. Draco’s teeth are freezing, but he can’t shut his mouth for smiling.

Potter slows after a little, turns left for a little and then right, flies low towards a rocky outcrop as if he’s looking for something in the mountain face. But then he turns in a circle back to Draco, hovers. His hair is mussed up from the wind and he’s smiling too. Broad and proper.

“Let’s fucking do it Malfoy! Back to the western goal?”

And yes. Draco can beat him. He should never have been afraid of flying. The broom turns almost on the spot and he’s low against it and already moving so fast he can barely hear Potter as he swears and yells happily, “Oy you cheating Slytherin prick!”

Potter does beat him. Which is fucking annoying but, Draco thinks, as he circles down and lands on the pitch of the field, almost worth it. Potter lands lightly beside him, he’s sweaty and yelling but smiling at the same time. With his broom in one hand and he holds his other arm out and pulls Draco into some type of hug.

“Maybe next time hey Ferret?” Potter laughs. He smells like fresh air and sweat and his body feels hard and warm.

“Name the place Scarhead.” Draco manages to stumble out. And like that morning, it seems hard to talk again. Maybe he should ask Madam Pomfrey to look at his tongue.

 

Draco showers for his standard long period of time and then goes to lie down in his bed. He keeps thinking of Potter smiling, hanging mid-air on a broom grinning like a fucking git. Potter smiling and Potter hugging him. His hand digging into the back of Draco’s neck.  His hand’s digging into Draco’s knees when he knelt in front of him that night. Which wasn't really a nice moment, more disconcerting. Upsetting.

But the kneeling...

It’s only after he’s been touching himself for a full minute or two, palming himself softly in an unfocused way, that Draco notices what he’s doing. Realises that he’s semi-hard. He pulls his hand away from his cock as if he’d been burnt. But at the same moment, the thought of being hard is a fucking thrill in itself. He can almost feel more blood rushing to his dick. He reaches down again, hand through the hole in his pyjamas and runs his thumb over the head and feels a tiny amount of slick.

After he comes he rolls over on his side, come cooling in an uncomfortable way on his pyjamas. He can feel tears stinging his eyes. But he’s happy he thinks. Having a wank is a good thing he thinks.

Maybe.

He isn’t sure. It’d be good to talk to someone about this stuff. But the only person he really talks to is Potter. And. Well.

Draco wiggles out of his pyjamas and goes for another shower.

 

−∞−

 

Draco is leaving lunch on a Tuesday two weeks later when Professor McGonagall sends a first year with a note. Draco reads it and for some reason isn’t surprised when Potter, who's just walked in but only after the food has been removed, comes to stand beside him, looking down at the parchment. 

“I’m to go to her office,” Draco tells him.

“I’ll come down too,” Potter says, then reaches up and lifts his bag strap from his shoulder and takes his bag.

Draco is confused.

Potter turns around to Ginny Weasley, who dumped Potter apparently but seems very interested in watching him right now and says, “Gin could you take these back up to the common room for me?”

She shoots Draco a flinty look but takes the two bags from Harry, her face softening a fraction but still unhappy as she answers him, "That’s two favours you owe me Harry.”

The whole thing seems a bit odd. But Potter is throwing a thankyou over his shoulder and then with a hand on Draco’s upper arm is steering them out of the Great Hall. He drops it as the make their way through the entrance hall. He’s pulling his tie undone and finger combing his hair, then just as they reach the gargoyle at the bottom of the hidden staircase he stops and reaches for Draco’s, pulls it loose as he says, “Don’t go in there as a school boy.”

Draco is distracted looking at Potter’s eyelashes, a smudge on his cheeks as he looks down at his hands working the knot of the tie free. He forgets to ask what is happening. He's beginning to accept that this is just how it is now, moving his mouth when he's around Potter is some type of a struggle.

 

There are two Aurors who have come. Two Aurors, Slughorn and McGonagall.

Draco looks at the empty spot on the wall next to Dumbledore’s snoozing portrait that must be where Snape will be hung and he doesn’t cry. McGonagall leans forward, says something in her crisp tones and pushes a plate of shortbread towards him. Draco nods and Potter takes two of the biscuits. Draco thanks her.

He signs a parchment. Then another. He feels something cold wash over him. Something binding pulls in his chest, clutches around his heart tight and enveloping, then relaxes.

He's served a warrant for the continuing investigation and hold that has been placed on his grounds and homes and thanked for his co-operation.

None of them remarked on Potter following him in the room and when the Auror rolls up the parchments none of them act as if anything is out of the ordinary when Potter moves from the side where he’d been standing, shakes the Auror’s hands in turn and then with a hand on Draco’s shoulder signals for him to leave.

They walk back to the common room together, Potter follows him inside and then stops at about the couch.

“Draco.” He says. His voice sounds the same as ever.

Draco doesn't stop. Walks up to the bathroom and strips off and stands in his shower for the longest time. 

 

He goes up for breakfast the next day though. Sits in his usual place on the bench and eats his porridge. Ginny Weasley comes over and drops his bag into the empty space beside him.

“Harry is away,” she says coolly.

Draco looks at her face, pale with freckles and a wide mouth. To Draco she seems so tough and a little chaotic.

He stands up suddenly, “Ginny?”

She says nothing but does stop turning away and looks at him in answer.

“I was wrong.”

She watches him for a moment, face unmoving and simply says, “Yes.”

“And.” The porridge is a lump in his gut. “And, I am sorry about your brother.”

Ginny looks away at this. Closes her eyes and breathes in. When she opens them again they are not shining, she’s not about to cry, they are instead a little curious, assessing.

“Luna says you helped her.”

Draco looks down at his bowl, congealing. “I couldn’t do much. Some food.”

“No Malfoy. I mean when you distracted him, them. More than once.”

And so, she knows. Draco swallows. He feels a little sick. He thinks he might be suddenly sweating. Merlin knows why he said anything. Strange brash outburst.  He means it, means it all, thinks he does at least. But fuck, why did he speak?

She’s silent, but he doesn’t think she’s waiting for him to say anything more. He touches his fingertips to the table top to ground himself.

Then in a lighter voice she says, “I think Harry will be back on Sunday.” And with a tiny close-lipped smile she turns and walks back to the table where a crowd of mostly Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students sit.

 

That evening he writes an owl to his Mother and then his eyes fall on the Firebolt Potter gave him. He never thanked him.

He writes a note. He words it as taught by his Mother when writing to various relatives to thank them for Christmas and Birthday gifts. It’s formal and stilted and he loops the tails of the descender letters very carefully.

He cries a little as he writes it and doesn’t even notice until a stupid tear lands on the parchment.

He is a cliché. He’s a scared sniffling schoolboy. He can hear his father.

 

He sends off one of the three school owls he often uses for his regular correspondence with his mother, standing at the wide gap in the wall looking off into the darkness as it flies away. He does this every time, as if he’s willing the owl on, sending something else with it, something that he can’t put on parchment for his mother to read just yet.

He pulls out the envelope he printed Potter’s name on and looks at it. Thinks he won’t send it after all. But as he turns and starts to slide it back into the pocket of his robes a smaller Long Eared Owl flies down and makes a small hoot.

Draco sends the note.

 

−∞−

 

He takes the broom out on Thursday after class. Walks towards the Quidditch pitch with it slung over his shoulder and it’s only when he arrives that he realises that there would be other students there. Potter and him have been out several times now but always they start by flying away from the school and then loop back.

He stops and takes a few steps backwards, but there is the noise of boots scuffing over grass and Ginny Weasley is hovering two inches off the ground in front of him.

“Malfoy!” Her tone is not unwelcoming, “Can you play seeker on Michael’s team?”

Draco makes a surprised noise that sounds like ‘huh’ but Ginny seems to take it as ‘who’ and she spins her broom around and points up to a figure on a Nimbus 2000 who is circling with five other people all wearing a bright blue coloured top.

“Michael Corner, we were going to have to ask Dennis and he’s bloody hopeless, to be honest, I’d much rather you.”

“Will they...”

“It’ll be fine, no one cares, they just want a good game.” And with that proclamation Ginny Weasley pulls her wand out of her boot, aims it at Draco and before he even has time to stiffen in anticipation of a hex she has charmed his heavy woollen jumper a bright electric blue.

“Ok then,” Draco says a bit lamely and swings his broom off his shoulder and mounts it. He kicks up and hovers beside Ginny, she’s looking at the broom keenly.

“That’s a nice new firebolt Malfoy.” She says as she slides her wand back into her boot. Her voice is odd, amused almost, “It's funny, I heard Harry in the Floo placing an order for that same model a few weeks ago.” Her arched eyebrow settles into a somewhat disconcertingly cheeky grin and before he can stutter an answer she’s telling him to follow her and then telling the other players that he is joining the game.

No one does seem to mind him playing. And it doesn’t take long for Draco to be lost in it all. Circling the periphery of the game, trying to be aware of where Ginny Weasley is, swinging round to avoid a bludger. And he catches the damn snitch. They’ve had a good game, about even, and visibility is getting quite bad and Draco spots it hovering near the foot of one of the chasers on Ginny’s red clad team. He weaves towards it slowly, playing for time and then it darts away and Draco chases. He catches it by swinging an arm out so suddenly that the momentum causes him to swing half off the broom, but he’s close enough to the ground then that he can roll off. Landing on his shoulder heavily but feeling lighter than he has in years. People on his team are there cheering him, he’s being slapped on the back and Corner is yelling jibes at Ginny and punches Draco in the arm and then they all seem to be heading inside for dinner. No one washing up or pausing to drop off gear, just dumping it in a pile by the entrance to the hall and launching themselves into their meals.

Draco doesn’t really talk much. He passes dishes of vegetables and some bread rolls, he laughs along at a story Macmillan is telling about Flitwick and he’s asked a question about if he knows a charm for alphabetising note cards, he does.

And it’s fine. It’s nice. Pleasant.

When he gets back to the Slytherin dormitory he showers, but not for as long as usual. And when he goes out to start his homework by reading his Arithmancy notes there is a tray with a teapot and some shortbread sitting on the usual table. His heart lurches a little. He sucks a quick breath in, but there is no Potter. The couch is empty.

Draco sits in his window and gets shortbread crumbs all over his pyjama shirt.

 

−∞−

 

Potter turns up on Sunday afternoon.

Draco comes in from another impromptu Quidditch match and he's there, sitting on a smaller settee across from his usual napping couch and he looks like shit. He has bags under his eyes that Draco almost mistakes for bruises. His beard is completely grown in and his shirt has a large stain down the front of it that is hopefully coffee.

"Potter," Draco says, a little hesitant.

"Hi." He gives a sort of sheepish smile and then his mouth seems to crumble a little and the edges tremor a little.

Draco can't move. Half an hour ago he was hitting bludgers at Ritchie Coote and now he's standing in front of a version of Harry Potter that looks defeated. He’d take wild-eyed. Harry when he’s back from where he goes is normally wild-eyed. Draco pictures the expression quite a lot.

"Wanna get pissed with me Draco?"

"I think I still have the kirsch?" Draco says cautiously, tone light. He leaves his broom sitting across the table they usually sit at to eat and study and starts to walk towards the little shelf that holds the liquor, but Harry is pulling bottles out of a bag at his feet.

"Got it covered, tequila, vodka, even got some of that schnapps you love."

"I don't _love_ it," Draco mutters and sits down on the couch across from Potter.

He's unsure what to do. Potter is a mess. The idea of Potter being anything that isn't stoic, or heroic or pissed off is disconcerting. It's uncharted territory for Draco.

Does Potter want to talk openly about his feelings? Does Potter want to have a deep and meaningful?  Draco thinks that's what Pansy and Millicent and Daphne would have called them. Not that they had them, more seemed to disparage those that did. Draco has never had a purposefully open conversation. More just stutters. Everything has hidden currents of emotion after all. Horrid heightened inescapable emotion conveyed in a desperate grab of his hand by his mother's cooler soft one. Tired and seemingly bruised Potter rubbing his eyes sleepily and looking at him while he wakes and then getting up from his couch and traipsing off to wherever it is he goes. Sometimes these things seem like the most honest conversations Draco has had.

Potter thumps the tequila and vodka onto the coffee table and of course, a tray with shot glasses sliced lemons and salt appears next to them.

"How do you do that?" Draco shakes his head as Potter grins a sort of twisted smile in response.

"Guess it's tequila, I hate this shit." He's pulling the cap off and slopping it into the glasses, "you know what to do right?"

"I've not..."

"Never?"

"Not much time for..." Draco fades away. Not much time for anything teenage really. He pokes at a wedge of lemon.

"Do this." Potter instructs with a little jut of his head to get Draco's attention, then he licks the back of hand, just above his thumb. It's not salacious but Draco feels a different sort of disconcerted creeping round the outside the concern he was feeling for Potter.

"You lick and the tip a bit of salt on your hand."

Draco brings his hand up and licks it. It smells a little like leather from his gloves.

 

"You called me Draco."

"What?"

"Before, and another time."

"Oh." Potter says and blinks. His eyes are a little unfocussed. Draco wonders how much his glasses magnify his eyes. His stupid eyelashes.

"Well I like you," he looks downwards and seems to blush, "like the name."

They moved to the window, Draco’s legs drawn up against his body and directly across from him Potter is sitting cross-legged. He looks up very suddenly and the sheepish expression is gone, it is trademark Potter, his jaw tense and he's grabbed Draco's shin. "You said your mother never really believed, but did you? Did you Malfoy?"

It takes him a moment to understand what Potter is talking about, and then there is this sort of odd numbness in his shoulder and chest. Some sort of darkness at the edge of his vision. He has no idea how to answer Potter. He did. He didn't.

"I thought Mudbloods were a real thing, a lesser thing." His voice is a strangled odd thing. Potter blinks, his fingertips tighten a little, digging into the muscle. "But did you want them all dead?"

"No. No." Draco shakes his head. Then he remembers when the Chamber of Secrets had been open. How he'd had a strange excitement that maybe one would be killed. One. Someone. A person.

Draco's head swims.

"I don't know." He concedes. "I think I did? But before I knew what it meant. What death meant. Also..."

Harry is watching him. Draco looks at the moving darkness next to them.

“I mean Mudbloods weren’t people so much as they were a concept." Draco muses. Instantly blushes himself. He's horrid. He can't express this. Least of all to Harry fucking Potter, who hasn't moved, is still staring at him quite intensely, still gripping his leg.

"I don't now, don't think that. But also I'm scared." Draco almost whispers, "It's easy here. Safe. I'm not challenged. What will happen when I leave, if I even get a job, I mean.” He takes a deep breath, “I haven’t been tested, I could still end up being a prejudiced shit given a chance."

Potter looks confused. “If you're afraid of doing it, surely that means you don’t want to act like that? You just said you don't think like that anymore? I know you spoke to Ginny..”

“What if it’s just dormant? What if I get a bit back on my feet again and I am swanning round with a wand hidden inside a cane dismissing amazing witches and wizards? People like Granger or Thomas for no reason, and starting campaigns in the press against...” It pours out of Draco a little frantically.

“Are you going to be a journalist?” Potter interrupts.

“What?”

Potter lets go of his leg, leans back against the wall again. “How are you going to start campaigns in the press? I'm not trying to be a dick but your influence is not really the same as your Father’s was a few years ago."

"Yes Potter," Draco says dully, hoping he’ll stop.

But he keeps going, Potter’s tone of voice changing to something a little lighter, "You could always make some badges I suppose but I hardly think a few pins have the same reach as an editorial in the Prophet."

At the mention of badges Draco groans, "Shut up Potter."

"Malfoy, you are not your father. I'm pretty fond of that wand of yours and if you try to hide it in some posh git walking stick I'll hit you with the thing, plus, you're starting to make mates with everyone, so you know, if you start to display any fucked-up tendencies we’ll get Ginny to hex you.”

Draco’s been watching Potter, couldn’t help but look at him when he mentioned the wand. He knows he has more than just a ‘thing’ for Potter. He wonders if he knows. Thinks he mustn't. Hopes he doesn't. Wonders if impressing Potter would be enough to stop him from doing something horrid, if he’s enough on his own. He’s never felt enough before. Always done things to try to impress people who he wanted to love him.

Draco rubs his nose. "Bat boogies. Imagine being infamous for boogies," but before he’s even finished speaking he grins ruefully, “I know I know, better than being infamous for any of the ways I am Merlin!” And he’s shaking his head and proper smiling at Potter.

“Prefer bat boogies over the boy who lived twice,” Potter says drily as he leans over to the tray that they’ve placed on a chair they dragged over to act as a table for them. He splashes out two more shots and passes Draco the salt.

“You keep showing up.” Draco observes, “you keep showing up and then you keep disappearing.”

Potter is sucking on a lemon. There is a tiny little bit of lemon caught in his beard just to the left of his mouth. Draco wants to lean forward and swipe it away but he’d probably end up cupping Harry’s stupid jaw in his hands and telling him what a comfort the line of it was to him and well. No one needs that.

“I’m stopping going down now.” Potter replies, “It’s a getting a bit...”

“You do too much.”

Potter shakes his head, “No, it’s not. Don’t make that part of it all. And I’m not the one who takes about a million subjects."

Draco raises an eyebrow, “Very different. And,” something blurts out of him unexpectedly, “and, I don’t like to think.”

“Thinking stops the thinking,” Potter says softly and sighs. “I guess felt like I should go down was all, but also, I think I was curious. I wanted to know everything. Everything he’d done, everything he’d allowed and encouraged, orchestrated to happen.”

Draco rubs his hand on his chest just above where his heart is. There is a slightly raised scar there and sometimes it’s nice to run his fingers along it and feel his heart beat underneath, “Luna told Ginny I think.”

“Draco,” Potter’s voice is soft, “it’s a matter of public record, which, why didn’t you talk about it in your interviews with the Aurors? Or in your trial?”

Draco just shakes his head, “To what end, one thing doesn’t cancel another, and I don't think it was much more than self-preservation.”

“No, but it was more than one.” Potter makes a quite fair attempt at raising an eyebrow, “you on multiple times subverted and interfered in criminal, and dark magic plans within your home...”

“Not my home,"

Potter sucks in a breath, “No. Sorry.”

"And seriously Potter, I did assist maybe, but why? Not out of anything too noble, I think I'd heard the other screams, didn't want the guilt of knowing who'd made the ones I'd hear the next night. I didn't plan anything, didn't solve anything. Wasn't being brave, and I'm not being humble now. Just you know.."

Potter shakes his head slightly.

It’s Draco who does it then. He’s not sure why. He splashes the tequila into the shot glasses and he grabs Potter’s hand and licks the back of it roughly and throws a large pinch of the fine grains of salt over it. When he looks up at Potter his mouth has a determined set to it. His eyes seem a little hard, and they are looking at his lips.

 

−∞−

 

Potter does stop going away. He’s there almost all the time. He’s in the common room sleeping when Draco gets back from class, and more often than not, when Draco wakes up in the morning. A pile of quilts and proper pillows appear one day and seem to be folded and laundered by the elves. Potter’s at all the pick-up Quidditch games. He plays wherever, often chaser and often on Draco’s team and that in itself is a revelation. Potter and him ganging up on Ravenclaws, out-strategising and out flying them all. Potter running decoy as Draco goes for the snitch. It’s intoxicating feeling like he’s _a something_ with Potter. A team, but more than that, a unit within the team. That they are sharing something. Doing something together.

Potter’s not in the Great Hall for meals. And he’s never in the library.

There’s a permanent pile of books and other belongings on the table adjacent to the one they study and eat at. A few other innocuous items; A hair comb, a deodorant potion and a plain wooden chest with a place for a padlock to be attached, but without one. Draco looks at it, interest piqued, but he almost feels the Slytherin alumni whose empty portraits line the room shake their absent heads at him as day after day he leaves it sitting, un-snooped in.

Sometimes clean folded clothes seem to appear there on Potter’s table. Potter tends to pull his clothes off while he sleeps and just leaves them scattered around the common room. Draco thinks of offering him a room, he’s staring out the window during Arithmancy thinking about how he walked past Potter that morning, asleep on the couch, quilt around his waist and bare back on display, laying on _his_ couch on his stomach. He could easily suggest it. But he doesn’t.

He’s not overly sure why Potter comes around after all. He obviously has a room of his own. And he could be anywhere really, do anything, he’d be welcomed everywhere. He’s certainly at Hogwarts all the time now, but with the regularity that Draco finds him napping on his couch or already up in the air flying, he must be missing classes. So, Draco isn’t sure why he’s at Hogwarts, let alone in Draco’s common room. But that’s ok, Draco’s uncertainty about everything to do with Potter is no different from his uncertainty about everything else after all.

 

Potter also seems to be allowed to get the Slytherin common room fire connected to the Floo Network because at some stage a jar with a snake coiled around it appears on the mantel-piece and mid-morning one Saturday after checking on his N.E.W.T potion in the lab Draco walks into the common room to find Potter with his bum up in the air and head in the flames.

“Whose boots are those Harry?” Asks a voice from the fire.

Potter spins then and looks up at Draco, a smile breaking across his face, “Hey Draco.”

“Oh, Malfoy.” Draco can see Granger’s face in the flames now, she looks nervous. His own stomach flips.

There is an instinct to run to the bathroom. To his shower. A safe place. But Potter is looking at him and the night three weeks ago or so with the tequila and the words. All the words

Draco kneels down, squashes in beside Potter so that Granger can see him. He finds himself giving a sort of an odd wave, folding his fingers down onto his palm and when he opens his mouth to speak an odd squeak comes out before he clears his throat a little and says, “Hello Granger. Hope you are well.”

Granger is looking between Potter and himself and then seems to realise it’s her turn and smiles politely at Draco. She’s never smiled at Draco.

“Hello Malfoy. I am well, thank you. I hope you are too?”

Draco nods as Potter beside him snorts a little, “Merlin.”

Draco watches as Hermione fixes Potter with a narrow-eyed look, “Let us get past a first sentence Harry.”

Potter holds his hands up in surrender, “Sorry but you sound like Neville’s Nan and Molly struggling to find something to say at that picnic thing you made me go to.”

“Formidable woman Augusta Longbottom.” Draco says blandly. He doesn’t know anything about her really. Except what has been in the papers. And that she had a very clear speaking voice in the howlers she used to send Longbottom. Easy to hear from the Slytherin table. Easy to recite back to Longbottom later in Potions. Draco feels that heaviness on him a little. There is a lot of the past. Not all of it is huge monumental things. Not all of it is the Vanishing Cabinet. Some is just days spent being an arse. And he’s not so sure he’s sorry about teasing Neville Longbottom. He was always a bit of a fool. Draco dislikes bumblers.

But then isn’t he the biggest fool and bumbler. And hadn't last year Neville been anything but a bumbler. Last year, last May.

He realises Potter and Granger are laughing beside him and he smiles as well, plays catch up.

Potter ends the conversation quickly, a message passed on for Ron and then Granger tells Draco it has been nice to see him. Draco says likewise, and the flames flare and die out and Potter and him stay kneeling for a moment. Draco needs to go have a shower. He can feel the heaviness of everything and it's a little too much.

Potter stands first, turning and holding his hand out to Draco who can’t not take it. Allows himself be part pulled up by Potter until he’s standing looking down at him just a fraction.

“Thank you.”

Draco swallows looks past Potter for a moment and then back at his face. “It was nice to see her.”

Potter squeezes his hand and then lets it go, but he stays standing close. He looks better then tequila night. The smudges under his eyes are there, but they aren’t painful looking bruises. His beard is trimmed a little. Draco could lean down. Could put his nervous fingers on the side of Potter’s face and hold him as he kissed him.

“I, ah, I have to go Potter. Sorry.” Draco just turns and walks.

Potter follows him, he grabs his arm while saying, “Wait.”

Draco half turns, let’s his arm be held.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry if I pissed you off somehow.”

Draco’s eyes feel hot somehow. He wants to fucking run. Hide. But it’d only draw more attention. Better to be in the open but very still. Wait for the threat to get bored and move on. Nothing to hunt if you’re out in the open exposed. No thrill. Lessons he learnt in a very different place run through his mind.

“Draco, look at me,” Potter says and his voice sounds odd, upset.

“I just need to have a shower Potter.” Draco tries for dismissive.

“I’m sorry if I’ve invaded too much, I just needed to speak to Hermione about, well, about somewhere we went when we were hunting.”

“It’s not that,” Draco says. His eyes burning, he won’t shut them.

“Draco.”

“Potter, it’s just sometimes.” Draco feels sick. He’s going to say it. He can feel the words already crowding their way out of his mind, “sometimes I think about stuff, stuff from before and, and, I just need to wash.”

He pulls out of Harry’s grasp and walks deliberately and slowly up the corridor, only breaking into a run as he turns the corner.

 

When he comes out of the bathroom Harry is in his room. He’s sitting on the edge of Goyle’s bed, tossing an apple between his hands.

“Merlinfuck!” Draco sort of shrieks in fright.

Potter grins, almost laughing, “Merlinfuck?”

“Do you have...” Draco stops, runs a hand through his hair, the other one holding his towel where it is wrapped around his hips. “You just fucking.. You just walk in everywhere!”

“No passwords, always thought that was odd.” Potter shrugs.

“There is a password you know.” Draco says, mouth pinched, “but the way Hogwarts is constantly sending you fruit baskets and offerings, I get the feeling you don’t need them.”

“Oh,” says Harry looking at the small bowl of fruit on Goyle’s dusty bedside table and putting the apple back on top, “is that not normally there?”

Draco tips his head to the side and looks at Potter silently for a moment. Potter is looking back at him very directly and it’s a little unsettling. Draco is aware of his pink very scrubbed skin and yes, Potter has already seen the scars, but his hand is itching to touch that one above his heart a little. Ground himself again.

“I need to get changed, Potter.” He says finally.

There’s a funny look on Potter’s face then, nervous maybe, he swallows, wipes his hands on the knees of his jeans and stands up and walks right up to Draco. Maybe even up on his tip-toes because his mouth lands directly on Draco’s own. Draco’s lips are parted in a silent ‘oh’ as he realised almost at the same time as Potter did it - what was about to happen, what _was_ happening. There is a bit too much force. It hurts a little, Draco’s top lip pulled upwards and his nose pushed against the side of Potter’s. But then Potter pulls back a little and Draco just moves. His hands on either side of Potter’s stupid fucking jaw and fuck that’s good.

They kiss for a while. Potter gets a little better at it as they do, or maybe he does. It’s a changing thing. It’s a little bitey. Draco doesn’t notice his towel has partly fallen down until Potter splays his hand across his lower back, pulling Draco flush against his own body and the tips of his fingers pressing into the top of his arse.

Draco makes an odd noise. High-pitched. Potter mouths at his neck, Draco can feel teeth skimming his skin and his dick is semi-hard trapped against his leg and Potter’s own thigh. He can’t breathe.

“Potter.” He gasps and Potter pulls away, blinks at him.

“Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t really mean to.”

And Draco steps back too then. Clutching at the half-fallen towel and pulling it up against him as he quickly moves past Potter towards his clothes in their neat piles on Blaise’s bed. Hides his softening dick and his falling heart. Of course Potter didn’t mean it.

“I wanted to ask if you’d come somewhere with me, I didn’t mean to...”

And Draco still faces away, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, longs for the shower and picks up a shirt and pays attention to undoing the cuffs and rolling the sleeves up.

His voice is very calm, “I’d be happy to go with you.” He says.

“Really?” The surprise in Potter’s voice is enough to make Draco turn around and look at him. He’s holding onto one of the posts of Draco’s own bed, his t-shirt ridden up on one side and he looks properly happy. Similar to that look he gets after they go flying.

Draco is distracted by it.

“I’ll let you get dressed, and meet you outside.” Potter smiles, almost bashfully, lets go of the bed post and then bumps his fist against the wood. It’s a lot. Draco’s hands shake a little as he reaches for a pair of pants.

 

They walk towards Hogsmeade. Draco can do Hogsmeade he thinks. But then Potter talks about how days can blur a little and that he realised that it’s two months before exams and last time he lost time like that it was suddenly Christmas and he’d been thinking about that and about how Draco kept saying that the manor isn't his home and he’d decided that he wanted to go back to his house.

Draco had thought he meant the old Black place.

He hadn’t.

 

It’s very pretty. Village-y. Draco licks his dry lips and is about to observe how lovely it must have been to visit at Christmas with the snow on all the thatched roofs, but he catches himself. Hears his father telling him he’s made a fool of himself in company. Bumbling idiot.

Potter doesn’t let go after they Apparate in. He pulls Draco forward a little and spins him around. The muggle memorial changes to a statue of two very young people holding a baby.

A baby Harry.

They don’t say anything, just stand for a moment and then before Draco is ready, Potter is turning again and walking down the street.

It’s quiet. Late Saturday afternoon now, almost dusk. They don’t pass anyone else and Draco is looking at a cottage across the street when Potter slows as they pass by an overgrown hedge with a small rusty gate in the centre.

"It's this one," Potter says, a little raspy. A small cottage with an overgrown patch of grass and half of the roof and top floor itself missing. Merlinfuck indeed.

Draco is about to ask if he wants to wait a moment, but Potter is already pulling him forward. A sign materialises, rising out of the rusted gate and Draco catches a glimpse of some text but Potter doesn't pause to read it, he's reaching his free hand out, pushing sort of hesitantly through the sign and the gate as if he's testing the wards.

Draco thinks back to the cold sort of pull his heart had experienced when he signed the parchments the Aurors had brought him as he watches the gate sort of shimmer and Harry pass through it. He’s still holding his hand, pulling at Draco’s arm and Draco feels the prickle of unfriendly wards graze over his skin. Potter stops and seems to square his shoulders, looks to his side but not back at Draco. It’s almost as if he is looking down at the wildly overgrown patch of grass that is beside the path, as if he is telling his family plot of land to let Draco in.

It does.

Harry walks a step in-front as they go up the short path to the door, and then he mumbles, “Sorry” as he let’s go of Draco’s hand and pulls his wand out of a small pocket that must run down the inside of his jeans. Along his thigh.

Draco hates himself. Why is he thinking about Potter’s thigh? How it had felt next to his own just an hour ago. What was that? Merlin, he’s so scared. He feels like he’s acting under an Imperius almost, moving without thinking or choice, muted. He doesn’t want to disappoint Potter. But of all people why is he here. Why did Potter kiss him, why does Potter keep coming back?

Fuck.

They go through the doorway with none of the hesitation Draco would show, and he manages to be present enough to add that to his list of bewildered questions, how is Harry always brave?

But then he almost walks in the back of him, because Harry’s stopped and he’s got a hand on the cracked plaster of the wall staring at the floor at the entrance to what must have been the sitting room.

“I saw it all once. I’d have these visions, see what he saw. Once he was remembering, showed me how he killed them.” Harry waves to the spot he’s staring at, “my Dad.”

“Oh.” Draco feels his heart lurch. He feels a little as if his body is being rushed forward at the same time as being pulled backwards. Nausea. His heart is uneven. He feels like he can smell him. A strange acidic potion sort of smell. Like preserving potion and nightshade. He’ll never forget.

“Oh.” He says again.

After a time Harry moves forward and they carefully pick their way into the sitting room. Draco stays near the door. Watches as Harry looks at the couch, stands in front of it and looks out the window, rubs behind his ear as he does so. Draco looks at his jaw, his familiar profile.

Harry makes it all the way across the room. Runs a finger across the mantelpiece and then rubs it against his thumb. When he comes back a little closer to Draco his mouth has an angry set to it.

“There’s nothing here, just furniture. Where did it all go?”

And it is odd. Furniture left, couch and coffee table and a smaller loveseat. No pictures on the wall, no ornaments, no books. Why take those and not furniture?

“Kitchen?” Draco says.

Harry goes past him, avoids stepping in a certain part of the hall and Draco mirrors this.

They go past the stairs that lead up to open sky and through a wooden framed door into the kitchen. A woodfired oven and a small fireplace, there is a round rough topped wooden table, big enough for six people maybe and a dresser, but it’s empty of plates. Furniture again but no objects.

As before, Draco stays in the doorway. Looks out the window placed over the sink into an overgrown back garden, looks at the pattern the bricks laid for the old cottage floor make.

“There’s a book.”

Harry is at the dresser, one of the three drawers of the thing open in front of him and he’s looking down into it. Draco moves to stand beside him. It’s an old linen covered exercise book. 

Harry doesn't look up, holds his wand out with a shaking hand and Draco takes it from him and watches as Harry lifts the book up and flips open the cover. Copperplate handwriting covers the unlined pages.

“Recipes I think,” Harry says softly, turns another page.

 “I think that is a potion that one,” Draco observes. “Powdered egg? What is that? Definitely from an Apothecary.”

“No, I think it’s just old. Maybe during the war. The muggle war in the 1940’s, or a bit after that.”

“Sem-oh-lee-na dumpling.” Draco sounds out slowly as Harry turns another page.

Harry closes the book and he holds it to his chest, arms crossed in front of him, "I’m taking it with me. I think I want to go now though?” He sounds like he’s asking, he's not looking at Draco. Just standing still, looking at the empty dresser shelves, not blinking. 

Draco looks at his jaw. Clenched and tense. He steps so he's standing behind him properly, puts his arm around Potter's shoulder, palm flat over his sternum pulling Potter's back against his own chest.

"I'm going to take us home okay?" He says into Potter's hair, who gives a small nod in response and Draco whispers, “with me.”

And there is a moment when he feels Potter just relax completely against him, like he’s letting Draco take control. Trusting Draco. And at the same time Draco realises that that’s exactly what’s happening; What has been happening a bit. Harry has been relaxing around him, has been trusting him, feels safe with him, and that he has done for some time as well. And it’s lucky that it’s too late to pull out of the Disapparition because Draco’s head could start swimming with that idea, but instead he focuses on the crest of the hill outside Hogsmeade.

 

They walk silently back up to Hogwarts. It’s mild, early spring and there are wildflowers and actual rabbits hopping through the grass. Harry is holding the book tucked under his left arm against his body and with his right he’s grabbed Draco’s hand again.

Draco has held Potter’s hand this afternoon more then he’s held anyone’s hand ever. It’s another intoxicating thought to add to the collection. 

They go to the common room when they get back to school and Potter says, “Grab the Vodka?” And goes straight to his table of possessions. When Draco comes back from collecting the vodka from the secret shelf, Potter has opened the wooden chest and is fishing around inside a Mokeskin bag. He pulls out a piece of crisp folded parchment and then an older one, Yellowed and creased and torn off. Potter smoothes it out and then flicks through the linen covered book quickly, skipping pages until he’s towards the back and suddenly stops. Huffs out an odd noise, runs his fingers over the written lines then lays his palm flat on the page.

“Pineapple Achar.” He says finally, softly and with an unsteady voice. “Definitely her, the way she dots her i’s. The g’s.”

He stands up suddenly, “Let’s go sit by the fire." And he snatches the bottle from the table as he walks over.

Draco casts a quick glance across the table before he follows. He can’t take in the book and the letter properly though because his eyes fall on the other bit of parchment Harry had pulled from the Mokeskin pouch. It’s the thank you note he’d sent him for the broom.

 

They don’t drink really. A tray appears on the hearth rug with a soda canister and some lime. As well as their standard missed-dinner sandwiches. Draco mixes them both a drink but they both eat first.

Harry talks about finding a letter his mother had written his god-father at the old Black house. Draco has read about Sirius Black being framed for murder in the post-war coverage, but it’s still hard to fathom a little bit. The numerous rifts that evil rent throughout countless lives, everything left a little indecipherable in its wake.

“It was so strange there was nothing else there,” Draco says a little later.

“That’s why I wanted to go.” Harry shifts a little, sips his drink. “I have nothing from either side of my family, it’s like no one existed. Nothing but galleons in a vault.”

Draco thinks about everything he has. Wonders if he’ll want any of it, even when the Aurors hand it back. If.

“I don’t think I want any of it.” He says out loud.

“Of my galleons?”

Draco gives a hint of a smile but shakes his head, “Things, family things, my family things.”

“Oh.”

Harry leans towards him then, his lips are dry. His cheeks are wet. He kisses him tentatively. Just a press or two against his mouth and Draco feels something a little desperate in his chest. He grabs Harry by the arms of his t-shirt and sort of pulls him towards him at the same time as he twists and pulls Harry down on top of him. They kiss the whole time, uncontrolled and little more then wild movement against each other's mouths. Harry’s elbow lands heavily on his stomach and then his slides off, lodges between Draco’s body and the side of the couch.

“Draco.” Harry breathes as he pulls away for a moment, but he’s shifting, getting his weight on his knees, his leg in-between both of Draco’s own.

It’s too quick really. The way Draco’s cock is hard, the way his body is arching up into Harry’s as they kiss. Harry biting at his under his ear, pulling at the collar of his shirt, sucking at the skin where his collarbone meets his neck. Draco can feel Harry is hard as well and it’s all he can think of for a bit, even as Harry pulls at his shirt and slides a too-cold hand under the material, his stomach jumping with the tickle of it.

He undoes his own belt, but mainly because it’s uncomfortable. And he’s lost the ability to stop. Harry is up on his knees doing the same thing, his cheeks a flushed red colour and his eyes staring at Draco’s hands fumbling with his belt and flies.

Draco lifts his arse off the ground and pulls his trousers and pants down in one motion, leaving them just above his knees, his cock bouncing a little as it’s freed.

“Shit,” Harry mutters, looks at his face finally. “Fuck Draco.” And then he’s on top of him again, somehow awkwardly pushing Draco’s trousers down further with his feet or something so he can fit in between Draco’s legs and his cock is pressed somewhere against Draco’s own, his mouth is hard against Draco’s lips. His shirt buttons are partially ripped and Harry’s mouth is kissing at that raised scar above his heart.

Draco gets a hand down to touch Harry’s dick. The angle is awkward and he’s got no rhythm but Potter gasps and swears again as Draco brushes his thumb over the head. It’s a little wet. There’s something in that that makes Draco want to see it.

“Up up.” He says into Harry’s temple and he pushes himself up on one arm. Draco scrabbles around so he’s leaning against the sofa, Harry still in the circle of his legs, but kneeling now, still kissing him randomly, chest, neck, side of his mouth. He’s holding their cocks together pulling almost too roughly, Draco’s hand on top of Harry’s. He thinks Blaise taught him a lubrication spell once. He can’t remember it. Then Harry licks his palm and wraps his hand around just him, he does the same to Harry. Spit and a firm grip. 

Draco’s stomach is nerves and fear and there’s that odd feeling that he’s close to coming. So soon. Fuck.

Harry’s eyes are bloodshot and Harry is gasping and there are definitely tears tracking down Harry's cheeks. It’s all Draco can do to keep going. He wants to stop. Wants to just kiss Harry until he never cries again. But he’s coming. Harry’s hand twisting a little over the head of his cock and yes, Draco is gasping Harry’s name and his right leg is doing a strange twitch thing and it’s fucking brilliant and somehow awful at the same time. He’s coming but he’s so desperate for it at the same time. He’s flushed with pleasure and embarrassment all at the same time. In his own grasp Harry’s dick is heavy and over-heated and he tightens his grip as Harry fucks a little into the circle of his fingers. He makes a gaspy sort of sob and then reaches up to Draco’s face blindly. His fingers find Draco’s mouth and Draco sucks them in, the middle and the ring finger.

“Come on Harry,” he almost begs, the words garbled around the fingers in his mouth and Harry does.

He groans and his eyes shut and he makes a noise like a laugh and a gasp and his whole body sort of shudders. He slumps back on his knees and then rolls over Draco’s leg to sit beside him. He’s panting a little and Draco watches his chest rise. Wipes his hand off on his shirt.

They are quiet. Draco realises he has no idea what to say or do. He’s shocked enough that he may never again; may just have to just stay here, leaning against the couch, softening dick out of his pants because he’s an inept git who has no experience or nuance whatsoever, no idea how to cope with wanking off the saviour of the damn world who you have a massive crush on. Although it’s not really the kind of happening that any of his Father’s tutors could have prepared him for.

But Harry finally looks at him and then breathes in, turning his head upwards, the air sucked in loudly and his throat on display. He gives a grim laugh, “I didn’t mean that to happen like that.”

Draco is wary. But something is in that. That sounds like Harry did mean it to happen. Maybe not as rushed as it did. But.

He moves on instinct, wiggles his feet out of his trousers finally and is up on his knees, his shirt falling down over the mess on his stomach. He straddles Harry and presses himself against him. Kisses his neck. Simple, up in a line, over his fucking stupid jaw. Harry turns, meets his lips. It’s a mess. Draco wasn’t expecting it. They clash teeth and Harry reaches round and pulls Draco in closer but then they are unsteady and sway oddly. But neither of them let go. They kiss until Draco thinks they are good.

Good at it. Maybe not good people. He’s not been reformed by a kiss. But his knees hurt and his brain feels cloudy and when he pulls back a little and stills. Looks at Harry, his lips are puffy and soft and his smile is too. His lashes still have clumps of tears and his scar is still on his head but he’s looking at Draco in a way that makes everything shift a little again. What he knows changes a little.

“I, I didn’t know if you...”

“I do,” Draco says. “I do a lot.”

Harry nods. “Yeah” It’s more a breath than a word and it’s more an agreement than an affirmation.

Draco keeps going. Keeps acting rather than thinking. He feels bold and warm and a little golden, “Come, come have a shower with me.”

“I love showers.” Harry answers. But he doesn’t get up, he puts his hand on Draco’s lower back and pulls him back in again. Their noses sort of bump. Maybe they’ve got un-good at kissing. And straight away Draco thinks it's lost. Maybe it was one little moment and the rest will be shit, but as his mind races, he feels Harry’s lips smiling against his.

“Pointy git.” He says, lips moving against Draco’s as he speaks, and then he kisses the side of Draco’s mouth. Kisses his cheek. 

Something is warm and wonderful again and Draco’s heart races. He smiles back, lets Harry feel his teeth against his chin, just to the side of his mouth where his beard is.

“Hairy git.” He says, pulls back a little so he can smile at Harry.

“I’m hungry.”

“I’m sure a fruit bowl will appear in the shower if you come in there with me.”

“Treacle Tart,” Harry says nonsensically, but he still doesn’t get up. He just leans forward again and kisses him.

 

−∞−

 

They play Quidditch after classes the next day. And Harry comes to the Great Hall afterwards and eats with them. And Draco feels it. How the whole room is watching Harry. But it’s quite odd, as Harry is doing his usual thing of watching Draco, a bowl of thickly cut beer-battered potato chips appear on the table amongst the Beef Stew and green beans and mashed potato and Harry pointedly passes it to Draco before allowing Ernie to steal it for himself.  Draco eats his chips and lets his skin itch as Ginny Weasley watches them both without any surprise.

It doesn’t take long after the adrenaline from playing sport settles that all the talk turns to exams again and to career options and Draco chews his suddenly dense and horrid chips for a long time, doesn’t feel like he can swallow.

“Wanna go back?” Harry mouths with a nod to the doorway. Draco nods and they both swivel and work their ways out from their spot on the benches. Harry says something about an overdue parchment for Potions and there are a few mixed goodbyes yelled to them both. Just before they get to the door and Potter places his hand on Draco’s back, and he does it again after they have freed each of their brooms from the pile of equipment dropped there.

Draco says nothing.

He lets Potter come into his shower again. He’s appropriately excited by it. Seems even more excited by Draco himself. Flings both his arms around Draco’s shoulders and kisses him until Draco has to step back and lean against the cold tiles to support them both. There is a messy mutual hand job and Harry mouthing at Draco’s neck while he comes over Draco’s fist. Draco is a little dizzy and very giddy and just whatever this all is he can’t understand it.

“Why’d you start coming here, Harry?” Draco asks.

Harry smiles, his chest still moving rapidly, breath still short. He runs a finger softly along a scar on Draco’s chest and says, “It was nice and quiet. It felt like an escape.” He leans forward then and kisses Draco’s lips.

“What are you doing after school Draco?”

“I have community service at St Mungo’s. I’m hoping maybe in the potions dispensary but I'm sure it’ll be bed pans.”

“I can...”

“No.” Draco shakes his head, his shoulders heavy again, “you can’t do stuff for me Potter.”

“Yeah.” Harry agrees. He’s reaching for the soap now, moving more into the centre where the two sprays meet. “I came back because of you. After your trial I mean, it seemed like a thing to do, go to school.”

Draco stays against the wall, raises an eyebrow, “Are you going to come do twenty-four unpaid months work cleaning bed-pans at St Mungo’s as well?”

“Maybe.” Harry smiles, “Probably going to keep doing some stuff at the Ministry.”

“Auror?” Draco stands up, takes the soap from Harry and turns him, moves it over his back.

“No. Not yet, consulting they call it. ‘Miones got some stuff I can help with too she says, some projects. Hey, where will you live? You can stay with me, live with me.”

The words tumble out of Potter in a rush. He looks a little shocked at them himself.

“Maybe,” Draco says, heavy still with everything that that means, but fuck. He reaches around Potter and pulls him against him, runs the soap up and over the hair on the centre of his stomach and his chest, over the angry pink mark against his chest.

“Thank you.” He whispers into the shell of Harry’s ear.

 

A few nights later they have dinner in the Great Hall, not after Quidditch, just after class like everyone else. A lot of people do look at Harry, but overall it’s fine, it’s nice. Pleasant. 

Harry is a messy eater and Draco can’t look away. He’s burning with it all. He knows they can see it. Well, he feels like they can. And he looks at Ginny Weasley sitting two places down from Harry, she’s looking at him in return. She smiles.

After his second bowl of ice-cream, Harry asks quietly, “Are you ready to go back?”

And Draco shoots another quick glance at Ginny. She’s still smiling. The Hufflepuff girl next to her is paying no attention at all. Macmillian and Coote are talking about skiing and paying them no attention at all.

“Are you going to do Charms homework? Why don’t you bring it back up here?” She asks, looking from one of them to the other.

Draco shoots a look at Harry who’s standing up, his expression open, not in the least bit wary, and he gives a little shrug. A little agreement.

Draco takes a sharp breath and says, “Alright, yes. We’ll be back in a little bit.” He nods at Ginny, has to look away. It’s so small but it all seems so big.

 

−∞−

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'm [Silvered Glass](https://silveredglass.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you'd like to chat


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